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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 5721572" data-attributes="member: 2205">As well they should; a lot of folks like a tough game, and a tough game always has the potential for a TPK or effective TPK.  Heck, we just had an effective TPK in the game we're playing; not literally every character was killed, but only one or two survived--barely--and we now need to effectively rebuild the group from scratch.  We've had that happen a few times in various campaigns, although it's still rare.  And we tend to enjoy it.Curiously, in our case, the GM didn't really mean to do so.  He runs Paizo modules, and he complains bitterly about how poorly they're balanced and how they clearly favor the really tough, ultra-tactician mindset, which our group does not subscribe to.  And he believes that they purposefully undersell the difficulty of their encounters.  He's not the only one in the group that thinks so, although I reserve judgement until I actually try to run a Paizo module myself.  He's also clearly, obviously, and admittedly fudged things on occasion to avoid a TPK or effective TPK.And it's also not the player's desire to go into TPK territory, really, either. Yeah, but we're not really talking about encouraging them.  We're talking about tolerating them.  I don't believe that's as much of an edge case as you make it out to be.  In our case, over the course of several campaigns and several years, we've probably had at least five TPKs, near TPKs (effective TPKs from the point of view of most of the party) and fudged "shoulda-been" TPKs from this one GM.  I certainly don't believe that we are a group of "stupid" players (although I guess, how would you know?)  Why do we tolerate it, then?In part, because we're all a bunch of friends who have fun just getting together no matter what we do.  In part, because that particular GM, who's the most common one to run for our group, delivers on a lot of other aspects of the game, including making a lot of really fun roleplaying and character development opportunities.  Partly, also, because he tends to run iconic adventure paths, and we think it's kinda fun to run through the "shared experience" of a really popular and widely played path, like Shackled City, Age of Worms, or Rise of the Runelords currently.  But mostly, because we accept that a consequence of the way we like to build characters, and the way we like to play the game, there's always a risk of character death, and even TPK.  We don't see it as a colossal failure on the part of the players or the GM any moreso than rolling a natural 1 on a skill check or attack roll would be.  It happens from time to time.  It's the risk you take.  It's just part of the game.You take a really black and white binary approach to this question, in my opinion.  I know that in the case of our group, a lot of the players (and the GM) blame the module writing at Paizo for the TPKs and near-TPKs we've had.  Personally, I don't subscribe to that point of view, as in my opinion, of course adapting the module to the group is a key and core skill that a good GM should develop and cultivate, and if he can't or won't, that's his failing, not that of the writers of the module.  But like I said, it doesn't have to be the show-stopper that you assume it is.  We tend to laugh, roll up new characters and start again from some other entry point into the game with new characters.  Our game is still fun, even with TPKs, near TPKs, high death count and turnover, and whatnot.  Your assumption that it's not fun, or that only edge case groups would tolerate that kind of scenario is, in my opinion, not correct.Where is this original story?  I feel somehow like I'm missing half of this conversation, but I don't remember seeing a link in the original post.</blockquote>

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